So today is day to try and get my first POTA Kilo (1000 contacts from one park) and first Oasis Activator (20 activations of a park)
Skipwith Common holds a special place for me as it’s where G5LSI, M7GAX and 2E0WTI have had lots of great activations there.
Had a fairly early start so I could be set up for around 08:00 GMT.
Figured I would start on 40 meters and go from there. Started calling CQ and lots of calls came in, some new contacts and plenty of familiar call signs.
It does help as Skipwith is a POTA park, World Wide Flora & Fauna and BOTA (Bunker on the Air) so when spotted on all the relevant pages you get a mix of people hunting you.
I had the park activated in about 10 mins which gave me the Oasis Activator. This was a promising sign for getting the 76 contacts to make the kilo.
M7GAX came down to see me and activate the park too. He started on 20 m so we did not interfere with each other.
With the numbers steadily increasing I was getting a little excited that I would I get the kilo.
With one more contact needed I shouted to M7GAX to get on 40m and turn the power down. I turned my power all the way down and made my 1000 contact with M7GAX!
Then G5LSI set a message on WhatsApp that there was a strong Japan station on 15m so I quickly put up 15m Ham stick and connected it to the radio and tuned the station in. I could hear him working other stations so I waited for a gap and replied to his call. He replied to me! First time for a SSB contact to Japan. What a great radio day!
Working Conditions
- Icom IC-7300
- Spider beam 7m pole
- Sotabeams Band Hopper III
- Ham2K Polo
Operation Totals
- 78 QSO’s
- 16 DXCC entities
- 2 Bands and 1 mode
- 40m – 77 SSB
- 15m – 1 SSB
- 6 Park to Parks
- 2 WWFF to WWFF
